


Coming Down, My World's Turned Over

by sk8rpssockpup (MissIzzy)



Series: Liaisons [3]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, F/F, Infidelity, Polyamory, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-13
Updated: 2008-11-13
Packaged: 2017-12-30 20:30:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/sk8rpssockpup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tanith may be in over her head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Down, My World's Turned Over

**Author's Note:**

> Started with the second scene, written for a fellow fan who liked writing on skin, and then expanded from there.

The flight to China took so long there'd never really been any hope of voting in person on election day; Tanith and Ben had both wisely voted absentee. They landed in China Wednesday morning, a little past noon local time, and learned the outcome of the election when several random Chinese people recognized them and stopped to thank them for electing Obama. They ended up searching out a TV to confirm it. Watching Obama give his victory speech, unable to make out what he was saying because a translator was speaking in Chinese over him, Ben cheered, Maxim hugged him, and Oksana cried. Tanith stood with them, calmly applauding, because that was neutral. Ben might have reassured all the foreign skaters in their rink that his was a vote for Obama, but the pressure to vote a certain way had caused Tanith to decide, long before she'd settled on her choice of candidate, that this, her first ever vote, would be private; even Ben would never know the way she had voted. Oksana was sure she had voted for Obama; Maxim accused her of voting for McCain. Both their assumptions left her only more convinced she was right to keep it to herself. Thankfully if Ben had any thoughts, he didn't voice them.  
  
There wasn't time to dwell on it. There were people to check in with and documentation to obtain, and practices to go to and programs to run through. A few more people congratulated and thanked them, but an annoyed Linichuk shooed them away quickly.  
  
After practice the news came to them that gay marriage was probably going to be banned in California, which depressed many of the rink's inhabitants, Tanith included. Many of the Chinese officials and bystanders were confused by their depression, but noone felt like explaining.  
  
It all meant that when Tanith got back to her hotel room, with Oksana following her for what could only be one reason, her mind was oddly empty; she just didn't feel anything, plus she hadn't slept enough on the plane and was exhausted. When the door was safely locked behind them, she kissed Oksana, but she wasn't really into it, and the other woman could tell. She pulled away, and asked, "Later, maybe?"  
  
"Yeah, later," said Tanith. "After I get some sleep. And a shower. Maybe in that order, maybe not."  
  
It ended up being in that order, because Oksana showered first, and Tanith fell asleep before she was done. She woke up to find Oksana asleep next to her. She went to shower, and emerged to find Oksana awake. She handed Tanith a hairbrush, and turned the TV on, then off.  
  
"You cried," Tanith commented. "Why did you cry?"  
  
"I vas happy," said Oksana. "Maybe now ve vill not have Cold Var again."  
  
"You think we really would have?"  
  
"I fear still. I do not vant us enemies."  
  
Tanith shrugged. "What's the difference? Didn't you openly say the Cold War's alive and well as far as Piseev's concerned? And to be honest, I think as far as American skating officials are concerned as well. And Igor. He's never forgotten that he's a defector, and work for the other side is what he'll do. Sure, Linichuk seems to have moved on, but, well, when Piseev sent you two to her she complied. And hey, we are rivals."  
  
"Different," said Oksana, rising to her feet and grasping Tanith's hand, and turned her face to force her to look at her. "Ve do not fear." She shook her head; her English wasn't up to this.   
  
Tanith moved away to continue brushing her hair. "I can't say it's a little weird, though," she said, "seeing the whole world watch us the way it has."  
  
"You vote for most powerman man in vorld," said Oksana. "You are lucky."  
  
"Yeah, I guess I am," Tanith agreed.  
  
***  
  
Both Tanith and Oksana were trying to learn not only each other's languages, but each other's written scripts, and while Oksana was learning English much faster than Tanith was learning Russian, Tanith was getting better with Cryllic than Oksana was with Western letters. Of course, she had too few words to write in it.  
  
"What's the Russian word for beautiful again?" she asked Oksana when they lay slumped against each other post-coitus.  
  
"I vrite it," said Oksana, because she knew Tanith would read it better than hearing it. She pulled herself half-up and groped about for paper and pen. She found a pen by the bed, but no paper.   
  
Then she looked at Tanith mischievously and moved forward, urging her to roll onto her back. Tanith's eyes flew wide with surprise-and with a little bit of a thrill-when Oksana lower the pen to the upper part of her breasts. "Costumes cover here alvays?" she asked. Tanith made a quick mental calculation, then nodded. This was far more erotic than she would've thought, the tip of the pen stroking her skin, Oksana's fingers doing likewise as she held the pen in place and her free hand strayed near, as Oksana wrote the word красивейше on her.   
  
She had to read it upside-down but even so she sounded it out,  _"Kra-si-vej-she,"_  though she wasn't sure if she was pronouncing it right.  _"Krasivejshe Oksana,"_  she said, and pulled her down for a long kiss, one that went down through her body and weakened her knees and made her want more. "I should write it on you," she said, taking the pen.  
  
Oksana hastily snatched it back. "No!" she protested. " _He_  see!"  
  
"You can wash it off in the shower long before you see him again," protested Tanith. Which she probably should do herself before she saw Evan; just because he was fine with this didn't mean he wanted to see evidence of it.  
  
"No, I..." Oksana looked like she wanted to cry. "Please no."  
  
"Okay, it's all right, I won't," said Tanith, and kissed her again, but now she was angry, and didn't try to hide it, shoving her tongue into Oksana's mouth and flipping them over, pinning her down. Oksana kissed back, arched into Tanith's mouth as she moved down, until Tanith was between her legs, and Oksana was whimpering and begging, because possibly noone had ever done this to her before Tanith-certainly her hypocritical philandering bastard of a boyfriend wouldn't. One of her hand's slid onto the small of Oksana's back, and her fingers began to move.  
  
The first thing Tanith had learned to write in Cryllic was her own name, the version of it Oksana had come up with even though its final syllable seemed not to exist in Russian, back when her lettering had been so bad Oksana had made her write it again and again, until she could do it by heart. Now, with the tip of her finger, she traced it out, even as she heard it fall from Oksana's mouth: Танйх.  
  
***  
  
There wasn't time to shower again before the next practice, or even the compulsory dance itself, so Tanith performed the Viennese Waltz with the word красивейше written on her breast. She wasn't sure what effect it had on her performance, if any. Ben did managed to notice it during practice; he got close enough and she saw him raise his eyebrows. "It's not visible, is it?" she asked nervously.  
  
"Pretty sure it's not," he assured her, and they dropped the subject.  
  
Tanith liked to have her way more when it came to sex during the competition, so by unspoken agreement Oksana went to her own room; if Tanith wanted her, she'd follow her there. But by the time Oksana and Maxim's scores had come up and ended the night, Tanith was pretty sure she was going back to her own room to take a shower, call Evan very briefly, and then go to sleep.  
  
She made sure to do them in that order, and she carefully washed the pen away until the last trace was long gone. In theory that shouldn't have been necessary yet, just because she was about to call Evan. She'd done so while lying in bed with Brooke, and Meryl, and even Tessa. But now, for reasons she wasn't yet ready to face, she didn't feel at all comfortable talking to him with Oksana's mark on her.  
  
"You'll beat her," he said over the phone. "She'd have had to lead you by at least two points, right?"  
  
"I don't know," said Tanith. "The scores are all much closer now, I think." Maybe if they'd made the move to Linichuk the previous year-but then again, she probably still would have fallen on that damned twizzle. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that fall had been unavoidable.  
  
She had trouble getting to sleep.  
  
***  
  
The next morning she ended up falling in with Amanda Evora, whom she made the mistake of sharing gossip with, which naturally led to her expressing a certain reason to be concerned. "It's about your boyfriend," she said. "I know the two of you are open and everything, but well, we were both in Canada last week, where we met with Jeffrey Buttle, and, well..."  
  
"He's got a very big crush on him, yes," said Tanith, as nonchalantly as possible.  
  
"That's one way of putting it," said Amanda. "Seriously, I'd be worried."  
  
"What should I worry about?" asked Tanith. "There's absolutely nothing that can happen there. We all know Jeff Buttle doesn't do casual sex even when he's single, except once at the Olympics, and, well, that was the Olympics, and now that he's off to marry his boyfriend as soon as they can get away with it...and anyway, Evan's smart enough to know that it's one thing to pine for Jeff from afar, but a relationship between them? Could never work out. They're too different."  
  
"Opposites attract," said Amanda.  
  
"Naturally, but I don't think they stay together. Or maybe some opposites can compromise enough to work it out, but Evan? He's stubborn, he's driven, he's kind of egotistical-not to the point where he can't respect someone like him, but that's what he needs. Someone who's willing to respect what he is, because that person is like him."  
  
"Like you," said Amanda.  
  
"Yes," said Tanith simply. Which, she knew, was why there could never have been anything permanent, either, between her and Brooke, or Meryl, or even Tessa, because they weren't similar enough to her in that way.  
  
That evening she and Oksana went back to the latter's room together, with Oksana in very high spirits for someone who had Tanith breathing down her neck in the standings. "But now there is only you," she said when Tanith pointed that out. "I did vorry, before...now, if I vin or lose here, I have Cup of Russia."  
  
She had spent the past two years seeing herself as the next Olympic champion, Tanith knew. Which Tanith herself had done, though it had looked a little further away these past few months. They were both thinking the same thing; they both wanted the gold here, sure, but they'd settle for more gold later. One could almost see the electrons in their brains forming the exact same patterns.  
  
One thing Tanith didn't have in common with her boyfriend was that she wasn't attracted to people not like her. That had made sure from the start that she and Ben would keep it strictly platonic. Evan could go after like and unlike with equal eagerness, but Tanith was drawn only to people who had at least something in common with her.  
  
So from the time she'd started sleeping with Oksana, she'd known they were alike. But it was only recently that she was starting to become aware how much so, like looking at her Russian reflection. Maybe Oksana was even more like her than Evan was.  
  
***  
  
Oksana's phone went off while they were having sex. Oksana froze.  
  
"Ignore it," Tanith hissed at her. She wiggled her hips against Oksana's fingers, trying to get them to  _move_  again.  
  
"Music..." Oksana protested. " _Him._ "  
  
"Don't you even dare," Tanith growled at her. "I'll start screaming and he'll know I'm here!"  
  
Oksana resumed, but now she was going faster. Her finger jammed down on Tanith's clit, which nearly did make Tanith scream, and made her come, and she hadn't even stopped spasming before Oksana moved away, grabbed and pulled on a nightgown and robe, and took her phone out into the hallway, all before Tanith could draw breath to protest that Oksana hadn't come yet.  
  
Listening through the wall she didn't have a prayer of knowing what she was saying to him, but her meek tone was hard enough to listen to, and after five minutes Tanith fled into the bathroom. She stood there staring at the shower, trying to figure out how long she needed to stay in the bathroom now before she started any water running.  
  
To make time pass she decided to wash her hands first, and she was drying them when Oksana came in. She looked very tired.  
  
"You say I should leave him?" Oksana asked.  
  
Tanith hadn't been planning to say that, but now she said, "If you know that already, what's the point of saying the words?"  
  
"He talk about you," she commented. "Not happy. Vant you losing."  
  
"Really," sighed Tanith. "Navka wouldn't have. She never minded me winning, so long as it wasn't against her, of course. She saw me as her heir, even. Didn't mind having an American heir, I suppose."  She thought back for a moment to that night after the free dance, with the Olympic champion and her husband, before bringing her focus back to the current Russian with her.  
  
"Cold Var," said Oksana. "He is still in it. More then Piseev even; he complains about men." She sighed as she shed her clothes and stepped to the shower as if she really needed to be cleaned off now.  
  
"Who would you have win?" Tanith asked as she followed her. "Would you cheer for our two guys, at least with yours too young to win yet?"  
  
"Artem still in fifth," shrugged Oksana, but that didn't really answer the question.  
  
Then she kissed Tanith and started rubbing up against her, which put an end to the conversation.  
  
***  
  
Tanith had expected that if she should lose this competition by less than half a point, and the free dance by exactly a hundredth of a point to boot, she would feel either encouraged or frustrated. But instead she just felt weird.  
  
"Maybe you should get used to it," suggested Ben. "Something tells me this is going to happen to us a lot in the next two years."  
  
"Hopefully next time we'll be on the other side of it."  
  
"Yeah, hopefully."  
  
Being pressed cheek to cheek with Oksana while getting on the podium was an interesting experience. She supposed they could show more warmth than usual, because they were friendly training mates, but during those split seconds she found herself worrying about giving too much away. She met Oksana's eyes as she withdrew and the amused warmth in them made her very badly want to blush; she had to force herself to think of something else. Though after that it was straightforward enough: exchange courtesies with more people, receive medals and flowers and pieces of electronic equipment that probably didn't work outside of China, then stand and listen to the Russian anthem. Tanith had heard that anthem on so many podiums that these days when she heard it in other contexts she suffered the urge to stand up straight and look for an American flag to face forward towards.  
  
She made this comment to Oksana while they stood watching the men's ceremony, which made the latter laugh. Ben joined them by the time the anthem played, and Tanith could tell it amused Oksana further to watch them stand next to each other with their flowers dutifully clapped over their hearts, as if they'd won this competition-which, after all, they nearly had.  
  
"Your anthem more beautiful at Olympics," she commented when it was done.  
  
"Yeah," Tanith agreed, "it was." Then, in a lower voice, she added, "That was arranged by a Canadian, you know. Though I think the Chinese still are refusing to admit that they ripped the guy's arrangement off."  
  
"I don't know," said Ben. "I think I agree with what Evan said, that it was a little too pretty." The two ladies rolled their eyes. "Either way, though," he said, "It's a good time to be American right now, isn't it? And a good time to be an American skater. And to be an American ice dancer."  
  
Tanith nodded her agreement. They'd both been so proud of Meryl and Charlie when they'd seen their victory the previous week. Maybe a little worried, but still proud.  
  
Then they saw Oksana turn away, and Ben started, "Sorry-"  
  
"No," said Oksana. "It is not vhat you think."  
  
"Then what is it?" Tanith asked gently.  
  
"Nothing," said Oksana, and hurried away. Tanith moved to follow, but Ben caught her hand, and she stopped.  
  
"And to think," she said, as they walked backstage, and found themselves alone, "I was so worried when she and Maxim came. I mean, how could we not be? I saw her as dangerous."  
  
"But not as dangerous as she turned out to be." Ben answered softly, voicing the thought she could barely stand to think. "At least if she'd been a bitch, you wouldn't have fallen in love with her."


End file.
